Bob Hague, a Central Florida artist, discusses the unique beauty of watercolor fine art painting and his adventures with the medium.

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Watercolor – Plein Air Painting (Painting in the Great Outdoors)

The art journey I’m on, in my opinion, requires me to become more proficient at painting outdoors. Painting in the great outdoors is something that I strive to become better at. I finally have arranged my “Plein Air” field kit into a manageable load, and it easy for me to carry all the stuff into the great outdoors.

While I am best known locally for my watercolor portraits, I also paint Florida landscapes and nautical scenes. Most of these painting are accomplished in my studio from reference photos I take.

So, I am determined to get better at plein air painting. To do this means I need to go out and paint plein air as much as possible. One of the problems with plein air painting is once on location the artist sees too much information in the scene. You can be overwhelmed with the view, and because the light is changing so quickly, one has to learn to paint fast and proficiently. I was told a long time ago by a very accomplished artist that every painting will not turn out well and not to be too hard on myself when it does not!

It has been a long hot summer here in Florida, and now the weather is cooler and I have had a chance to get out and paint. Below are a few recent plein air paintings that were fun to paint.